The transmitting device at his ear relayed his father’s voice, “Backup—” The transmission cut out, but the fear in his father’s voice had carried through clearly. “I need backup—now!”
He looked to the soldier across from him. “Go. Head for the landing strip outside of town. I’ll keep Stasi safe. Come back for us as if you can.”
The man nodded and leaped into the driver’s seat, peeling out and away.
Kirk went back to his station, his heart hammering out a prayer for his mother’s safety. And his father’s. And Isabelle’s. And Stasi’s.
They were down to one car in front, and one in back with Galen. It would be enough. It had to be enough. Surely Stasi would exit any moment, and they could safely make their getaway.
He stood back and prayed. Even the storm seemed to hold its breath. Tense. Waiting.
Long minutes crawled by, and Kirk itched to know what was keeping Stasi. Had some long-winded bureaucrat insisted on reading the whole sixteen-page covenant? Or was Stasi in trouble?
A gust of wind and rain hit with fury.
From up the street Kirk heard a squeal of tires. He trotted a few steps away from the building—just enough to give him a decent glimpse of the cross streets ahead.
His mother’s van swept by, followed quickly by two vehicles he didn’t recognize. Then came his father, swerving crazily between two lanes. Kirk felt glad that the storm had kept people off the streets. None of the cars appeared to be traveling at a safe speed.
But they were making their way closer to the Hall of Justice.
The transmitter at his ear buzzed to life again. “Stasi has signed the document,” Sergio informed them in a quiet tone. “She’s embracing Prime Minister Emini, and then we’ll be making our way out through the front of the building.”
Kirk watched as two more cars swept past. Would Isabelle be able to stop and sign the covenant?
“I hate to bust up your party,” Galen’s transmission cut in from his post at the back door. “Some men just got past me. They knocked me out for a minute there. Sergio, they’re probably headed your way.”
Gripping his transmitting button, Kirk debated how to respond. There was no answer from Sergio—no doubt he and his men were too busy dealing with the situation to stop and give them an update. Though his boots itched to run inside and tackle the men who’d come in, if he left his post at the door, anyone might get in after him. And the cars that had gone screaming past earlier were rumbling up the hill again.
His mother’s van tore up the street toward him, her determined face just visible through the windshield. He suspected she was going to try to let off the princess at the door. There was just room enough for her van to get by next to the other waiting car, but a red coupe was tight on her tail. As the street widened, branching off to the front drive that dipped past the porte cochere where Kirk stood, the coupe pulled alongside his mother’s vehicle, forcing her away from the Hall of Justice.
She swept past, taking the next corner at a quick clip. Kirk had little doubt she’d come back around for another try if she could. Though he hadn’t been able to make out much through the darkened back windows of the van, it appeared she had several people inside. Had Isabelle managed to convince the king to return? Kirk wasn’t about to distract anyone by asking.
In the meantime, his mother’s entourage swept past him, save for one car that swerved toward him. It didn’t belong to their group. In fact, it looked as though the driver intended to take a swipe at him.
With a tall marble pillar blocking him in on one side, Kirk leaped backward into a bush just as the car all but clipped his ankles.
The car screeched to a halt and three figures hurried out, darting into the building, right past the guard, who did nothing to stop them. If anything, they waved them on.
Kirk untangled himself from the bush just as the car drove off. But there was no mistaking who’d gone inside the Hall of Justice. Kirk would recognize his boss anywhere.
Viktor Bosch. He and his men had their guns drawn.
FIFTEEN
Kirk no longer felt he had any choice. He’d failed to keep Bosch and his men from entering, but he couldn’t let them reach Stasi. He ran into the building after them, and heard the guards stationed at the doors shout as he darted past.
At any second, he expected them to tackle him from behind, but the only sound he heard was the wet soles of his boots squeaking as he tore down the wide marble halls.
The Chamber of Parliamentary Session lay behind two heavy wood doors. As Kirk raced toward them, he saw Viktor pull the door open, and he and his men stepped inside.
Skidding toward the entrance in his wet boots, Kirk opened one door in time to reveal chaos inside the room.
Prime Minister Gloria Emini was being shuffled off through a back exit. Sergio and his men fought the insurgents who’d breached Galen’s guard, and it took Kirk a moment to spot Stasi, shoved back behind the large oak lectern on the dais.
Viktor must have spotted her at the same moment, because he rushed forward down the carpeted aisle. Vaulting the back rail, Kirk bounded across the semicircular rows of seats toward the front. He leaped to the dais just as Viktor approached it.
Throwing himself over Stasi, he tried to hide her behind the cover of the podium.
“Kirk!” Stasi clung to his shirt.
A shot rang out, and Stasi flinched in his arms. Kirk expected at any moment to feel a sting of pain. “Are you hit?” He tightened his hold on her.
“I’m fine. We need to get out of here.”
Kirk risked looking out past the podium. Linus had apparently disarmed Viktor Bosch and had engaged him in hand-to-hand combat.
“Where are the other men who came in with Viktor?”
He doubted the other men would have turned tail and run, but he could see no sign of them. Glancing up the side aisle, he saw a clear path to the double doors he’d entered through. If they could make it out of the room, hopefully they could escape the building. Both he and Stasi wore body armor under their clothing, but the only vest he’d been able to find in Stasi’s small size wasn’t rated for high-impact weaponry, and it left most of her shoulders uncovered.
He’d have to shield her as much as possible.
“Ready?”
She nodded.
“Toward the double doors. Let’s go.” They scrambled forward and leaped off the raised dais.
At that moment, Viktor Bosch landed a blow on Linus’s jaw that sent him spinning back. The guard landed with a thump on the floor.
Kirk froze. There wasn’t time to get Stasi back behind the raised podium again.
Bosch lunged toward a gun that lay a few meters away, up the aisle. Though it left the princess unshielded for a moment, Kirk vaulted after the man, landing solidly on his back and sending him sprawling.
Stasi’s small feet darted past his line of sight, headed toward the gun.
There was no time to see if she was able to pick it up. Bosch rolled sideways, and Kirk jumped backward, getting to his feet just in time to grab Viktor by the back of his shirt, throwing him away from the direction in which he’d seen Stasi run.
The man aimed a fist at Kirk’s ribs, apparently aware of his weak point, but Kirk ducked. He caught a glimpse of Stasi hunkered down between two rows of seats, and thought about encouraging her to make a run for it. But he knew the guards at the front doors sided with Viktor, and he doubted they’d let her pass. No, Stasi would be better off sticking close to him for now.
Kirk tried to kick out, to knock Bosch’s legs out from under him, but the aisle was too narrow to permit free movement. Instead, he barreled into the man, pushing him down the inclined floor toward the center of the room.
The man grunted and lunged back.
; Jumping to the side, Kirk got out of Viktor’s way just enough for his attacker to go sprawling forward. Kirk sprung over him and scooped up Stasi from her aisle. “Let’s go.”
She ducked under his arm and they headed for the door. Kirk kept her slightly ahead of him, aware that Viktor could come up behind him at any moment. Seconds later he felt a hard jerk on his ankle, and his leg was yanked out from under him, sending him down.
He rolled onto his back and got his knees up just as Viktor flew feet-first toward his chest. Catching him instead with the soles of his boots, Kirk pushed the man backward down the aisle and scrambled back to his feet. He lurched forward, his arm once again held high over Stasi, offering her what little cover he could, when the doors ahead of them burst open.
Men poured in. At first Kirk wasn’t sure whose side the strangers were on, but then he recognized Levi with Isabelle under his arm.
“The covenant is on the podium!” Stasi shouted at her sister.
Isabelle ran for the central dais.
Kirk had half a mind to caution them against coming in, but they had brought enough manpower with them to tip the odds back in their favor. As Viktor Bosch lunged toward him again, one of Levi’s men stepped between them, landing a solid punch on Viktor’s jaw.
“Get moving,” the agent shouted back at Kirk, as Isabelle and Levi scurried down the aisle toward the covenant that needed Isabelle’s signature.
Spotting Stasi still mostly hidden in one of the semicircular rows of seats, Kirk scrambled to her side and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go,” he whispered, but had barely spun around when the men who’d arrived with Viktor ducked out from behind a pillar, their guns pointed solidly at Stasi.
Kirk had only a second to pull the princess behind him before the guns went off. Bullets clipped the chairs next to him, and he felt another slam into his body armor, knocking his breath from his lungs.
Gulping air, Kirk caught a glimpse of a man bounding through the heavy wood doors at the pair of gunmen.
The distraction gave him just the break he needed. Kirk pulled Stasi after him, but her scream a second later stopped him short. Before he could ask if she’d been hit, she cried out.
“Father?” Stasi stumbled toward King Philip, who’d knocked one gunman cold and slammed the other’s fingers against the marble pillar until the gun fell from his hands.
“Run!” King Philip shouted. “Get Stasi out of here.”
Kirk hesitated. He couldn’t leave the king behind. He was a sentinel with the royal guard. He’d taken a vow to protect the crown.
“No!” Viktor Bosch shouted, advancing toward them.
“Run!” King Philip cried again, his eyes boring into Kirk’s. “Keep Stasi safe!”
Unable to argue with the king’s royal command, Kirk pulled Stasi under his arm and retreated toward the door. They burst into the marble hallway just as a shot rang out.
Kirk sprinted forward with Stasi at his side, surprised to see the guards had left their post at the door after all. He and Stasi spilled out under the porte cochere to find a world whipped by rain and wind. The waiting car was gone, and with sinking dread Kirk realized the crafty guards had likely stolen their getaway vehicle. Nor did he see any sign of his mother or her car. Nothing but dark clouds and howling wind waited outside.
“Now what?” Stasi asked him breathlessly.
With a quick glance back through the closing front door, Kirk spotted Viktor headed down the hallway toward the front doors.
“Run!” Kirk gripped Stasi’s hand and tore off down the street, adjusting his pace so Stasi could keep up with him. He ran around the side of the building, hoping Galen and his men still had their last car, but there was no sign of anyone, man or vehicle. Doubling back, he pulled Stasi along after him.
“Where are we going?”
Where was there to go? The Hall of Justice sat on a bluff overlooking the marina. Rather than try to climb higher up the hill, Kirk turned toward the water. “To the boats. Maybe we can lose them there.” He hoped his mother, or one of their other drivers, would come along with a car any moment, but there was no sign of any traffic activity in the midst of the howling storm.
Already the rain had soaked them almost to the skin. Kirk glanced back and caught sight of Viktor running after them. From what he could tell of the drill-sergeant officer, the man was in excellent shape. And it was less than a block to the marina.
He couldn’t let him catch up to the princess.
“The pier!” Kirk scanned the marina. Where were the Jet Skis that belonged to the Royal Guard? Would his fingerprint still work to free them from their security moorings? There was nowhere else to turn, and he wasn’t about to try to swim for it. That option hadn’t worked out very well for him before.
With no alternative, Kirk pulled Stasi down the dock, the hollow echoes of their pounding feet lost amid the screams of the storm.
“Where?” Stasi panted as they neared the end of the pier.
“Jet Ski. Get on.”
He settled onto the craft behind her and reached up to the box whose electronic sensor was shielded from the elements by a thick waterproof barrier of clear vinyl. Kirk mashed his thumb against the surface and waited, glancing back to see Viktor barreling down the dock toward them.
Green.
He flipped open the security box, tugged the mooring free and pulled the Jet Ski key from its hook. Jamming it in the ignition, he got the engine powered up just as a shot went off behind him, sending water spraying up beside them. Much as he’d have liked to steal the key for the other craft, there wasn’t time to mess with another security box. Not without Bosch catching up to them.
“Stay low,” Kirk cautioned Stasi, trying to cover her as much as he possibly could as he steered them away from the pier. Another shot slammed into the back plate of his body armor, but already the agile craft had begun mounting the swelling waves, putting some space between him and the dock, and the shot didn’t hit him as hard as the first one had.
For a few moments, his battle was only with the sea. Frothing, churning waves beat against the pier, threatening to crush their small craft against the pilings. Kirk focused on keeping the Jet Ski pointed at an angle to the waves, riding between the swells, making headway toward the islands.
In another moment he heard the drone of a motor, and looked back to see Viktor steering after them.
Kirk coaxed the watercraft forward. As they sped away from shore, he found the storm was mostly drenching rain, with winds limited to agitated gusts. Though the soggy sky had long ago soaked them both, and Kirk felt the onerous weight of his body armor, as long as they were able to avoid swamping waves, he hoped to increase the distance between their craft and Viktor’s. The islands offered the possibility of cover, and even some potential for losing Bosch among the many inlets and coves.
He sped toward the nearest island, picking up speed in the open water. The jagged waves slapped and jarred the craft, and Kirk kept a tight hold on Stasi as he covered her hands to steer. The occasional large wave drenched them both, reminding Kirk of the risk they’d taken heading out to sea in body armor. If either of them slipped from the Jet Ski, the weight of their vests would pull them down quickly.
He couldn’t let that happen.
With the advantage of his knowledge of the islands to guide him, Kirk swerved past the first, small island, which was little more than a long spit of sand. Its domed stretches of white beaches were a magnet for tourists, but repellant to him. They needed cover. The bare sand offered little of that.
But it did give him a blockade to put between him and Bosch, who chugged relentlessly after them in spite of the drenching rain. Swerving wide past the sand spit, Kirk turned to their watercraft toward the next island, a rocky, beach-rimmed promontory whose palm trees waved and shoo
k in the storm.
There was an inlet on the back side of the island, which led to a lagoon at the center of the atoll. Kirk headed toward it, hoping to duck inside, but aware that the fortress could become a prison if Viktor followed them in. Once they entered the lagoon, there would be no way back to the sea except via the narrow inlet, allowing them only one possible route of escape via watercraft.
Kirk pointed the watercraft toward the narrow inlet, his mind racing.
Stasi craned her head around and shouted against the whipping wind. “No! There’s no way out once we’re in—and nowhere to hide inland.”
She was right. The sparse palm trees wouldn’t conceal them for long.
The Sardis archipelago offered dozens of islands, and many more options of places to hide. Though he was eager to get Stasi out of the drenching rain, at the same time, he had the right to be picky about where they hid. Viktor hadn’t backed off their tail, but neither had he gained on them.
They still had time.
Kirk swerved through several more islands, dismissing most without any deliberation. Many were simply too flat, too sparse, too small to offer them anywhere to hide.
He swerved past another stretch of islets and spotted a long wall of rock.
“Channel Island!” Stasi called back to him. “We can hide there!”
Kirk nodded and headed them in that direction, but he knew the ominous thudding of his heartbeat wasn’t just from the pursuer who continued to dog their tail.
Channel Island was a lengthy, washed out atoll—two curving strips of land with a stretch of water between them. But the water that flowed between them was no shallow bath. Born from a long-dead volcano, the water below was deep and dark, rimmed with jagged rocks, and given to fierce undertows. Especially during storms.
Their Jet Ski chugged as it cut through the slapping waves. The menacing rock walls of the island’s twin promontories guarded the channel on either side, imposing and foreboding.
It was too risky.
“No.” Kirk turned their craft away from the island.
Protecting the Princess Page 18